On
the steps of the Chancellory in once-proud Berlin lay
a body wrapped in smouldering blankets—the body of the man whose name headed
the Death List of the faceless men –

Adolf Hitler!

What was the
name that made Rafferty drive like a demon?

In April 1945, the end of the Second World War was in sight. The Allied
armies were steamrolling through Germany from the west, the Russians were
smashing a way in from the east, and between them the remains of the once
mighty Nazi war machine was relentlessly pounded and crushed into a fast
narrowing shell and bomb torn corridor.

It
was on the twenty-seventh of that month that a spearhead of American armour,
advancing in the Frankfurt area,
came on a German staff car that had been blasted into a ditch by a cannon shell
from an aircraft. Beside the car lay an unconscious man in the uniform of a
Colonel of the Gestapo, the Secret Police of the Nazi Party of Adolf Hitler,
Dictator of Germany. The leading Sherman tanks
swept on by without a pause, but one of the wireless operators passed back a
message and within twenty minutes Sergeant Rafferty was on the scene with a
jeep and a medical orderly. Rafferty had command of two six-ton trucks which
followed the column to take care of German officer prisoners taken during the
day’s advance. Each evening these prisoners were driven back down the line and
handed over to the Military Police for dumping into a prison cage. Sergeant
Rafferty found things unchanged and the medical orderly made an examination of
the unconscious Colonel, checking his pulse, prodding with a finger about a
nasty gash on the skull and lifting an eyelid to peer into the glazed, staring
eye beneath. “Mild concussion,” he announced, stripping the covering from a
dressing to apply to the wound. “Most likely caused by the glancing impact of a
fragment of shrapnel.” “Well, he certainly didn’t get it falling downstairs,”
grinned Rafferty, searching the pockets of the Colonel’s black tunic. “In other
words, the guy got bopped on the bonce by a chunk of shell.” “Frankly—yes,”
admitted the medical orderly, dressing the wound and staring interestedly at
the lean, hard face below it as he did so. “Tough-looking bird. Say them scars
on his cheek are from a student duel, you know.” Rafferty exclaimed, “Jumping
Catfish!” “It’s a fact,” said the orderly. “Before the war a lot of dueling
went on in Germany. One
student challenged another and then they got together and carved slices from
each other’s pans with sabers. A guy was supposed to be rather a Droopy Dan if
he left college without looking like he’d had his head in a mincer.” “Jumping
Catfish!” Rafferty said again. The sergeant was staring at an officer’s
identity book he had taken from one of the Colonel’s pockets. “I don’t believe
it!” “I wouldn’t lie to you, Sarge,” the orderly said earnestly. “Why, them
young Germans even had dueling clubs so that they could have carving fixtures
with other colleges.” Rafferty said in a bellow. “Will you shut up?” and the
startled orderly became silent. Rafferty seemed extremely excited. He stood up
waving the book and said chokingly, “Let’s get him on the jeep.” “I haven’t
finished dressing the wound,” protested the orderly. “You can do it on the
road,” snapped Rafferty. He took another look at the identity book and shook
his head in wonder. “Boy, oh boy—who’d have thought it?” They placed the
unconscious Colonel in the back of the jeep and the medical orderly watched in
amazement as Rafferty brought the dangling wrists together and secured them
with handcuffs. The orderly started to inquire why, but, before he could frame
the words, Rafferty was engaging the gears and taking the jeep along the road
like a rocket. The orderly braced himself and resumed bandaging the Colonel’s
head. Rafferty drove as though the tail of the jeep was on fire. He rammed the
accelerator as close to the floorboards as it would go and kept it there. The
outraged yells and bitter words of shocked drivers followed them all the thirty
miles into the village of Solnastadt. An
old barracks on the outskirts of the village had been taken over as a cage by
the American Military Police. Rafferty drove into the courtyard, clamped on the
brakes with a suddeness that almost sent the orderly through the windscreen,
and seemed to bound out almost before the vehicle had stopped moving. “Keep
close watch on that Colonel,” he commanded, and strode off into the building.
The shaken orderly wiped an ashen face with the back of a trembling hand and
mumbled, “Crazy, just plumb crazy!” Rafferty came out in half a minute,
accompanied by a Major, a Captain, and two Military Policemen carrying
sub-machine-guns. The two officers were holding drawn pistols. They gathered
about the rear of the jeep and stared at the unconscious German Colonel. “Great
Jumping Catfish!” said the Major. “I don’t believe it!” Things happened fast
after that and the bewildered medical orderly stood on one side and gaped as
more Military Policemen were whistled up and a medical officer and two
stretcher-bearers appeared. “Put him in the strongest cell we have,” ordered
the Major. “Take away his uniform, chain him to the bed, and have two men guard
him at all times.” “Yes, Major,” said the Captain, saluting. “I’ll have the
light burn in the cell all night long.” “Take a look at him when he’s secured,
Doctor,” the Major went on. “Do everything you can for him. It is vital that
this man does not die.” The medical officer bristled and said, “Major, I always
do my best for the patient.” “Keep him alive,” the Major said pleadingly. “This
guy has to stay alive. Otherwise we can’t hang him!” The German Colonel was
hoisted on to the stretcher and the party swarmed around him as he was carried
into the barracks. As they vanished from sight the medical orderly came out of
his trance. “With all the fuss you’d think that guy was Hitler,” he observed.
“Give, Rafferty, give—who was it?” “Not Hitler,” grunted Rafferty. But then he
spoke a name and the orderly was stunned. His eyes bulged and he leaned heavily
against the jeep. “Well, wrap me up and post me home,” he gulped. “If that
don’t beat all. Say, they’ll write about us in the newspapers.” “Yup,” Rafferty
said. “As of now we are famous.”

THE TWO-GUN GENERAL

The German Colonel passed the night lying with pallid face and closed
eyes in glaring electric light. He regained his senses shortly after dawn. He
did so without fuss, merely uttering a groan that was choked off and then lying
quietly and gazing up unblinkingly into the harsh light.

One
of the guards sent for the medical officer and the Colonel submitted passively
to an examination. He showed no surprise or curiosity at the surroundings in
which he found himself. The Major came in as the medical officer left. He was
tousle-haired and red of eye, and he appeared much less alert than the silent
figure on the bunk. He drew up a chair and sat down yawning. “I am Major Roger
G. Bonway, of the American Corps of Military Police,” he announced in bad
German. “How do you do, Major Bonway?” replied the Colonel. He spoke in perfect
English. “I suggest we use this language. Your German contains many flaws and a
talk would be difficult.” Bonway was mildly annoyed at having his command of
German insulted. He said, peevishly, “Wise guy, eh.” “Merely helpful,” said the
Colonel. “Wisdom is given to few of us.” “Listen, Nazi,” Bonway said coldly. “I
know you guys think yourselves smart, but it don’t mean nothing to me. Take a
good look at that door.” “There is no need,” said the Colonel, without turning
his head. “I am quite well aware that a beefy guard is aiming a sub-machine-gun
at me.” “And he’s ready to use it,” snarled Bonway. “The jig for you is up,
Buster. You are now in he hands of the United States Army. “Does that mean I
can have one of those big American breakfasts?” the Colonel said pleasantly.
“Don’t get smart,” Bonway said harshly. He sounded upset. “I want answers and I
want them fast. You are Colonel von Reich, Hitler’s friend, the
second-in-command of the Gestapo. “I am Colonel von Reich,” the Colonel agreed.
“So you admit it,” bellowed Bonway. “All right, start talking. Where is
Hitler?” “Which Hitler?” Von Reich inquired interestedly. “I know a Karl Hitler
in Potsdam, a
one-eyed man who sells matches. I also know a Wilhelm Hitler, who is a poacher
in the Black Forest.” “Buster,” said
Bonway, breathing heavily, “You annoy me.” “American,” Von Reich replied
mildly, “you begin to annoy me. Let me remind you that I am a prisoner of war
and entitled to be treated with the respect due my rank.” “The rules don’t hold
with guys like you,” Bonway said with sudden coldness. He kicked back his chair
and rose to his feet. “Not after the things you Nazis have been doing in Europe for
the past few years. The other day we liberated one of your slave camps and I
saw sights there that’ll haunt me for the rest of my life.” The beefy guard had
unbolted the door from the outside and was holding it open. Bonway moved to
pass through then paused to stare long and hard at the prisoner. “You’re a
gangster in uniform,” he said flatly. “You’ll be treated as such. You’ll have a
fair trial, but you can be sure we’ll hang you when you’ve had it. Think it
over!” He went out, the beefy guard following and slamming shut the door. Bolts
rattled and presently the guard’s face appeared again at the barred spy-hole.
Colonel von Reich was left in his chains to stare up at the electric light and
be stared at by the guard. The Colonel’s expression was very composed for a man
with such a lack of future. “Jeepers,” said the guard, removing his eyes from
the spy-hole some ten minutes later and talking to his companion. “He’s
asleep.” The companion came for a look, shook his head in wonder, and remarked,
“Nerves like steel.” “He’s sure gonna need em,” said the beefy guard. The
Colonel slept soundly until the medical officer came to examine him and change
the bandage at eight o’clock in the
morning. The visit of the medical officer was followed by one from a barber
with a safety razor and soap, and Von Reich was carefully shaved as he lay
helpless on the bunk. Rather to his surprise, he was then unchained, provided
with a dressing gown, and escorted to a washroom where he was allowed to finish
his toilet. “Your uniform,” grunted the barber, coming into the washroom with a
black bundle in his arms. “Breakfast is laid out in the cell when you’ve
finished.” The Colonel put on the uniform and was further surprised to discover
it had been sponged and pressed, and the silver insignia polished. He was
escorted back to the cell where he found waiting a tray loaded with flapjacks,
syrup, fried ham, eggs, and a jug of coffee. “You ain't allowed to touch a
knife,” grunted the beefy guard. “So you’ll have to manage with a spoon. But
we’ve cut the ham up for you. The Colonel ate with obvious enjoyment, closely
watched by the beefy guard and his companion, and when finished was escorted
once more from the cell. This time he finished up in an office where Major
Bonway sat behind a desk. The guards took up positions against the wall and the
Major looked up with what might easily have been taken for a friendly smile.
“Ah, good morning Colonel,” he said pleasantly. “Please sit down.” A
comfortable chair stood in readiness on the opposite side of the desk. Von
Reich said, “Thank you, Major,” and settled himself in it. Bonway was still
smiling. He said in friendly tones, “I trust you enjoyed your breakfast,
Colonel?” “It was excellent,” replied Von Reich. “That’s just fine,” said
Bonway, the smile widening to a beam. “There’s nothing like a good breakfast to
set a man up for the day, that’s what I always say. Cigar or cigarette?” The
Colonel chose a cigar, and Bonway hurried round the table to clip off the end
and help him to light it. Fragrant smoke swirled above the desk. Bonway bustled
back to his chair and beamed at Von Reich through the haze. “I apologise for
the way I acted this morning, Colonel,” he said handsomely. “I was wrong and I
admit it. A high ranking officer such as yourself is certainly entitled to
respect.” “What you really mean,” remarked Von Reich, removing the cigar from
his teeth and delicately flicking the off ash, “is that you have decided I am
not the type of man on whom to use threats. So I am now being buttered up.”
Bonway’s smile shrank and the bit that was left became somewhat frayed about
the edges. “Let’s not beat about the bush, Colonel,” said the Major in less
friendly tones. “You’re a smart man and you shouldn’t need telling that your
side has just about lost this war. So why not do yourself a good turn by
telling us a few things we need to know?” “A good turn, eh,” Von Reich said
musingly. “Does that mean you will hang me with a soft rope?” “Now look here,
Von Reich,” Bonway began, but whatever words he was about to utter were
silenced by the thunder of engines outside, followed by the screech of brakes.
Bonway clamped his lips shut and sat scowling until the clamour had ended.
“I’ll give it to you straight, Nazi,” he began again, only to be interrupted
again. The door burst open and a uniformed clerk bounced inside, eyes wide open
and bulging, jaw bobbing up and down as he tried to stutter words. Bonway
yelled, “Get out of here!” “Major,” stammered the clerk, forcing out the words
with a tongue-twisting effort, “The General, sir—” That was when they became
aware of the voice outside, a nasal voice that bellowed in anger and
indignation. “Is everybody deaf in this place?” demanded the voice. “Are they
dead or deaf? Let me know, somebody.” “The General sir, mumbled the clerk. The
voice swelled deafeningly as it drew nearer and then suddenly it died away and
a short, stocky man was rocking in rubber-soled combat boots in the doorway. He
wore a steel helmet, a canvas belt that sagged beneath the weight of two
holsters filled with ivory-butted pistols, and a suit of combat fatigues with a
cluster of three gold stars on either shoulder. The office vibrated as the two
guards stamped to attention and the Major jolted upright behind his desk.
Bonway’s face was pale and his mouth twitching. “General, sir, this is an
honour,” he gasped. The General was staring at Von Reich. He snapped, “Is that
him?” “Colonel von Reich, sir,” replied Bonway, drawing himself up importantly.
“I am questioning him, sir.” “You look more like you’re trying to kill him with
your kindness,” growled the General, heavily sarcastic. “I never thought to see
the day when an officer of the United States Army would feed cigars to a thug
like that.” “It is my way of questioning him, General,” replied Bonway,
offended. “I am trying to win the prisoner’s confidence.” “Thugs are thugs,”
snarled the General. “You don’t pamper ‘em with cigars. Take the thing off him
and then hustle him out to my jeep.” “But, General,” Bonway said protestingly.
“This man is my prisoner.” “What’s your name, Major?” inquired the General. He
paced across to the desk and stared interestedly at Bonway. “Tell it to me. I
like to know the names of junior officers who question my orders.” “Bonway,
General, sir,” replied Bonway in an unhappy voice. “And I was not questioning
the General’s order—” “Bonway, eh,” said the General, nodding and frowning. “I
shall remember that. I have a good memory, Major.” “Guards,” rasped Bonway.
“Escort the prisoner to the General’s jeep.” “And take the cigar from him,”
grunted the General. “And take away his cigar,” snapped Bonway. Colonel von
Reich was hustled outside and taken over by an earnest young Lieutenant who
clamped handcuffs on his wrists and seated him beside the driver in the jeep.
Two six-ton trucks were parked behind the jeep and each was loaded with some
thirty American privates who stared wonderingly at the black uniformed Nazi
Colonel. “My escort,” said the General, motioning towards the trucks as a
crestfallen Bonway entered the courtyard. “You needn’t worry about that Nazi
getting away from me.” The earnest, young Lieutenant was sitting with levelled
pistol behind Von Reich. The General climbed into the jeep beside him, stood
upright and gazed keenly around as though searching for Indians, then flapped
his right hand and yelled, “Forward—yoh.” Engines burst into life and were
revved up and Major Bonway came to the salute. The small convoy moved off, the
jeep in the lead, the six-tonners following, driving out of the gates and west
along the main street of the village.

HEAD FOR
BERLIN

An hour later the sentry on duty at the entrance to a forward fighter
strip glimpsed the General’s stars and hurriedly swung aside the hurdles for
the convoy to drive in. The General paid a short and noisy visit to the
administration block and stamped back accompanied by a Major of the American
Army Air Corps. The Major was pale and perspiring.

“But
it’s not my Dakota, sir,” he was saying. “This is a fighter strip, and it’s
only here to bring supplies. I don’t have the power to put it on any other
duty.” “But I have,” grunted the General. “The Dakota is here so I shall use
it. A single-seat plane is no use to me.” “Bur, General, sir,” the Major said
pleadingly. “Let me just have fifteen minutes to radio its base for
permission.” “Major, tell me one thing,” rasped the General, glancing sideways
with bleak eyes as he stamped along. “Exactly how long have you been in this
man’s army?” They had reached the vehicles by this time. The General climbed
into the jeep, the Major stood alongside it looking miserable. “I have been in
the Army Air Corps exactly two years, five months, and – er – seven days,
General, sir,” mumbled the Major. “I have been in the army twenty-five years,”
snapped the General. “But before I had been in it half an hour I learned that
an order may be questioned but only after it has been obeyed. I have given you
an order, Major.” “Yes, sir,” groaned the Major, and his shoulders slumped in
the way Bonway’s had an hour previously. He wearily hauled himself to a seat on
the side of the jeep. “Take her straight on to the tarmac, driver.” Less than
five minutes later, Colonel von Reich was sitting on a crate in the fuselage of
a D.C.3, a Dakota transport, a puzzled pilot was strapping himself into his
seat, and the General was standing in the hatch and gazing down at the Major,
the Lieutenant, and the sixty men of the escort. “You men have done your duty
and done it well,” bellowed the General. “I am proud of the way you have coped
with an emergency. Lieutenant, you and your men are to have fourteen days’
leave. You will take them through to Paris, France, in
the trucks, book them in at the Army hotel and see that the Army Paymaster
makes them an advance in pay.” The Lieutenant saluted, but his crisp, “Yes,
sir, General,” was muffled by jubilant cheers from the crowded trucks. A warm
smile softened the General’s hard face. He waved for silence and called, “Bless
you lads. Go and enjoy yourselves.” “Three cheers for the General,” shouted a
G.I. in the leading truck. “Hip, hip—” The cheers were still ringing out when
the Dakota trundled down the runway and took off. The Lieutenant had an
expression of awe in his eyes. “That just goes to prove that even Generals are
human,” he said quietly. “Deep down they’re just like you and me.” “Suppose you
tell me the General’s name,” suggested the Major. “I’ll have to use it when I
radio the Dakota’s base.” “I don’t know,” said the Lieutenant, gazing at the
dot in the air to the west. “I’ve been trying to think of a way to find out all
day. But you can’t very well tell a General you don’t know his name. “No,”
agreed the Major, frowning worriedly. “That’s the kind of thing that would
annoy a General.” In the Dakota the General was at that moment busied in talk
with Von Reich. The Nazi no longer wore handcuffs and he and the General were
lounging on crates in a surprisingly close and friendly manner. “I like
Americans,” Von Reich was saying. “Serious and openhearted people. They might
have hanged me, but they would have done so for my own good.” “They mean well,”
the General said lazily, puffing at a big cigar. “Tell me something, Chief. You
know that we have been together for many years.” “I know,” said Von Reich.
“Since the days when we were both prisoners in Coburg Concentration Camp,” the
stocky man went on. “The year 1939 when you led a band of us in escape from
there and formed the League of Faceless Men. The letter “V” stands for red
Vengeance against the Nazis, we swore. You became our leader, Jack One, I
became Jack Six of the Faceless Men.” “So?” the lean man in black said
inquiringly. “I have known you as Prisoner 7324,” the General, otherwise Jack
Six of the Faceless Men, said musingly, “I have known you as Jack One, and also
as Colonel von Reich, the role you took on after the real Von Reich had been
killed and hidden. For six years I have played the part of your driver, S.S.
Trooper Hans Baumer.” “A long history, Baumer,” said Von Reich. “What is your
question?” “Are you an Englishman?” asked Jack Six. “Excuse my asking, but over
the years I have often wondered.” “I am Aylmer Gregson, an officer of the
British Army,” Von Reich said slowly. “At least, I was all those years ago when
the Nazis kidnapped me and threw me into Coburg. Now
it is your turn. How is it that in the space of a day you have changed from a
Nazi trooper to an American General?” Jack Six grinned impishly and said,
“Promotion is rapid in war.” He went on to explain how on escaping unhurt from
the wrecked car he had laid the unconscious Von Reich at the side of it and had
gone for help. On his way back with a new car he had run into a sudden American
advance and had been forced to ditch the vehicle and complete the return across
country. “I made it just in time to see you lifted into a jeep and driven off,”
he told Von Reich. “So I kept to the fields until I came to a side road in
which was parked a jeep. I heard voices from beyond the hedge and discovered
the little man and his driver eating lunch.” “Little man?” Von Reich said
inquiringly. “The General,” explained Jack Six. “The owner of this uniform and
these pistols. He said some very hard things to me when I was tying him and his
driver to a tree.” “Go on,” said Von Reich chuckling. The Faceless Man
explained that he had dressed in the General’s uniform and driven into Frankfurt in the
General’s jeep, calmly lodging himself in an American transit camp while he
made inquiries about his missing leader. The Americans had been most helpful.
“They fell over themselves to do things for me,” he told Von Reich. “Though all
the shouting was rather a strain on my tonsils. They found out where you were
being held and in the morning I demanded a suitable escort and set off to
release you.” “With a Lieutenant, sixty men, and two trucks,” Von Reich said
dryly. “Don’t you think that was overdoing it just a little?” “US
Generals like to travel in style,” Jack Six said with dignity. He rose to his
feet and polished his shoulder stars with a handkerchief. “Would you excuse me
while I attend to a small matter?” “You are excused,” Von Reich said
courteously, and Jack Six said, “Thank you.” as he went forward into the
cockpit. The pilot looked round with a nervous smile. “Son, I am going to give
you an order that you will find mighty puzzling,” Jack Six said gravely. “So
while you are obeying it I want you to tell yourself that in war there are
often secrets which cannot be explained to a junior officer like yourself.”
“General, sir,” the pilot said, just as gravely. “I know how to do my duty
without asking questions.” “You’ll go a long way, son,” said Jack Six, nodding
approvingly. “Now put this aircraft under the automatic pilot.” The pilot
promptly obeyed, and sat back in his seat. The General leaned over his shoulder
to inspect the controls and said, “That’s just fine, son. The next thing I want
you to do is to move aft along the fuselage to the hatch.” The pilot said,
“Yes, General, sir,” and began to unfasten his seat straps. Jack Six went on
smoothly, “Then I want you to open the hatch.” “Yes, sir,” said the pilot. “And
jump out,” said Jack Six. “It might be as well if you took your parachute with
you.” The pilot swallowed noisily, his eyes bulged and he gasped, “But, General,
sir—” “That’s an order, son,” Jack Six said sternly. The pilot stared with
shocked eyes at the grave, kindly face above him. Twice he opened his mouth as
though to object, and twice he glanced at the General’s glittering golden stars
and closed it. His shoulders slumped as had Major Bonway’s and those of the Air
Corps Major. He stumbled from the seat, hung the parachute over his left arm,
and began to work his way aft towards the hatch. Seconds later, the pilot had
baled out. “A fine young fellow,” Jack Six remarked a little later, sparing a
glance through the windscreen as he settled behind the aeroplane’s controls. “I
said he would go a long way.” “Jack Six,” said Von Reich, joining him after
closing the hatch. “You are a genius in a low and cunning sort of way.” “Some
men are born gifted,” Jack Six said modestly. He was putting the Dakota into a
tight turn. “Where would you like to go?” “You know the answer to that,” said
Von Reich, edging his way into the co-pilot’s seat. “Head for Berlin.”

“TAKE OFF
YOUR MASKS!”

Shortage of fuel caused the Dakota to put down in a field close to
Wittenburg. It was not a smooth landing, heavy twin-engined Dakotas not being
designed to come to earth in a ploughed field, but the two Faceless Men were
unhurt and managed to scramble to safety before the aircraft brewed up in a
geyser of flame.

A
patrol of Werewolves—the German guerilla force formed to fight against the
Allies even after Germany’s
defeat – escorted them to the local Gestapo headquarters, where Von Reich used
his powers as second-in-command of the Gestapo to obtain a car. “And I would
like a German uniform,” said Jack Six. “I have a feeling that Berlin is not
the best place to visit in the dress of an American General.” Berlin was
only fifty miles away, but the roads were packed with refugees fleeing from the
Russian advance, units of grey-haired reservists tottering along to meet it,
and the wrecks of vehicles destroyed by the strafing of the Royal Air Force
fighter planes. A night and a day went by before they reached the outskirts of Berlin on the
evening of the twenty-ninth of April in the year 1945. Jack One and Jack Six
entered the city that had been pounded by bombs until it looked like part of
the moon, a vista of ruins twisted into fantastic outlines, mile upon mile of
rubble from which rose gaunt crags that had once been the walls of buildings.
Before long they had to abandon the car and move into this man-made wilderness
on foot, travelling slowly because of the lack of landmarks. “I hate Nazis,” murmured
Jack Six, shocked into gravity. “But I pity the man who had to live through
this.” Shortly after dusk they found themselves on a wide space covered by the
stumps of small trees. “The Tigerarten,” said Von Reich, recognising the park
Berliners liked to visit in the summer. “We are getting close.” They pressed on
until they reached the street holding the famous Alhambra Restaurant, which was
the secret headquarters of the Faceless Men. There was a jagged mound of rubble
where the Alhambra had
stood. “We shall be all right if the lift shafts are not blocked,” said Von
Reich. “Headquarters are deep down.” They delved among the ruins, but a bomb of
the power of a thousand-pounder had smashed the building flat and nothing
looked the same. It was an hour before Jack Six’s foot came down on a slab
which gave so suddenly that he had barely time to leap clear before the yawning
black opening of a coal chute appeared. It was a steep, grimy scramble down a
ten-foot shaft and then they were in the boiler-room and moving through into
the cellars, using matches to light their way past bins and crates of stores
cloaked in a ghostly white by fallen plaster. In one of the cellars a touch on
a knob projecting from a wall produced a rumbling sound and the sight of a
section of wall sliding back. The two men sighed with relief. “The power is
still on,” murmured Von Reich. The hidden lift dropped them fifty feet below
ground level and into the centre of a system of bunkers that was the main
headquarters of the Faceless Men. It also operated a warning signal that
brought five Faceless Men flocking to the glaringly lighted concrete corridor
into which Von Reich and Jack Six emerged. The Faceless Men stood in a
semi-circle about the lift, sub-machine-guns in grey-gloved hands, eyes
glittering disbelievingly through slits in the smooth, grey rubber masks fitted
to each of the five faces. “But, Chief, we thought you were dead,” said one of
the Faceless Men, his voice distorted to an eerie whisper by the mouthpiece of
the mask. “It was announced on the radio.” “The report was not quite accurate,”
Von Reich said drily. “Please tell me about the situation here.” “We five are
looking after headquarters,” replied the one who had spoken. “The others are
out dealing with those Nazis who are marked on the Death List. All over Germany we are
striking.” The Death List of which he spoke contained the names of the Nazis
whom the Faceless Men had sworn to kill. It was printed in red type—and a red
line drawn through each name as its owner met with a just fate. “Jack Two
ordered us to stay here,” said one of the others. “He left half an hour ago
with a section of ten men. They intend to break into the ChancelloryBuilding by way
of the sewers.” “Hitler!” Von Reich said quickly. “Then he is in the city?”
“Still skulking in his bombproof bunker,” nodded the Faceless Man.
“Hitler and a few of his closest followers. Jack Two went because of a rumour
that they intend to escape by taking off in a light aircraft from the square in
front of the Chancellory. “We shall join Jack Two,” decided Von Reich. “All of
us—this is no time for any Faceless Men to stay in headquarters.” “But in
proper clothing,” put in Jack Six, beginning to unbutton his black tunic.
“Someone fetch me a couple of grey suits.” A few minutes later, led by Jack
Six, the small party of grey-clad men was moving by the light of powerful
torches through the dark network of sewers that lies below the city of Berlin. Two
hours before dawn on the morning of the thirtieth of April, the steel rungs of a
ladder built into the wall of a conduit brought them to an open manhole and the
muzzle of a sub-machine-gun held by a Faceless Man who guarded it from the
outside. He drew back at the sight of their masked faces and they climbed one
by one into the grounds of the Chancellory. “The others went in ten minutes
ago,” the guard told them. “There was quite a lot of shooting at first, but now
it’s stopped.” Russian shells were falling not far off in the city and
occasionally they heard the splutter of a distant machine-gun, but about the
Chancellory all was quiet. They entered the battered building and began to pass
signs of recent and vicious action, Faceless Men and black uniformed S.S.
troopers lying still in death. Four grey-clad figures came to meet them in the
entrance hall at the front. “Jack Two is dead,” said one of them. “I am Jack
Fifteen. I have to report that we were too late.” “Has Hitler escaped?” snapped
Von Reich. “He escaped,” agreed Jack Fifteen, turning and moving towards the
main entrance. “Come—I will show you.” Acrid smoke began to irritate Von
Reich’s throat and nostrils as he followed, but Berlin was a
burning, dying city and he thought nothing of it. He only began to understand
when he reached the open and saw a mass of smouldering rags heaped between two
of the marble columns of the portico. “He took poison,” Jack Fifteen said
quietly. “Then his followers heaped petrol-soaked blankets on the body and set
them on fire.” The Faceless Men gathered behind their leader and stood staring
at the funeral pyre of the man who had plunged the world into war and brought
suffering and death to millions. “So it is over,” murmured Jack Six. “It is
over,” agreed Jack One, and they watched him as he brought a wad of folded
paper from a pocket. He opened it out and the fading embers of the pyre glowed
on vivid red lettering. “V FOR VENGEANCE,” said Jack One, reading aloud. “The
Faceless Men strike for the Freedom of the World. It is the turn of the Nazi
Tyrants to perish. Nothing can halt the Red Vengeance of the Faceless Men.”
They continued to watch as he folded back the front sheet and studied the long
list of names filling the attached sheets. This was the dreaded Death List, the
record of those Nazis whom the Faceless Men had judged, found guilty, and sentenced
to death. Jack One brought a fountain pen from his pocket and poised it over
one of the names. “Hitler, Adolf,” he read out, and knelt closer to the pyre
for light as he scored out the name in red ink and wrote in the margin beside
it. “Died Thirtieth of April 1945.” There was silence when he finished and Jack
One folded the paper and tucked it away in his pocket. He felt weary now,
hardly able to believe it was over, and he had a feeling there was something
else to do, one important command to give. He realised what it was. “Take off
your masks,” said Jack One to the Faceless Men. “The tyrants have perished!”